HONG KONG (UCAN): At a May 17 meeting of the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China (BCCCC) and the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA), a five-year plan was agreed upon requiring Catholic dioceses to state in writing by the end of August how they will reduce foreign influences and adopt a more Chinese ideological and theological identity.

HONG KONG (SE): The two government bodies that hold official authority within the Catholic Church in China, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China, readily rubber stamped plans presented by the government for the coming year.

HONG KONG (SE): Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin was stripped of his mitre and crosier at a two-day standing committee meeting of the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China, which concluded in Beijing on December 12.

Bishop Ma incurred the wrath of Beijing when he publicly announced his resignation from the government-run Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association at his ordination as an auxiliary bishop of Shanghai on July 7.